The question I would now ask...

[heidi]

Ms Rowling - you've now slammed on people who think draco is redeemable and those who think Snape has layers and/or hidden depths. How do Snape and Draco differ, personality- and attitude-wise, from James Potter in his fifth year, or Sirius who was busy being a rebel?

And can anyone come up with other words for personality-wise and attitude-wise?

Comments

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

I think that what she's saying about Draco is that she planned for him to be a two-dimensional bully all along and doesn't really care to do more than that with him, whereas she planned to give Snape 'hidden depths' all along. Really, she has shown absolutely no inclination toward making Draco even remotely realistic. She was also alarmed about the idea of people (a friend of hers, for a start) finding Lucius attractive as well, because, like Draco, he is a 'bad boy.' Despite the fun she has writing Snape she also finds people's affection for him alarming, and he's being fleshed out a bit more. She insists that people's attractions to the characters are based on Alan Rickman and Tom Felton (and probably Jason Isaacs), despite the fact that people were redeeming Draco and Lucius in fics before the first film was ever released.

She just doesn't seem to understand readers' need for Draco's nastiness and enmity toward Harry to have a reason and purpose. For her, it's enough for him to be a 2-D Evil Guy. She doesn't seem to understand why readers find that vaguely dissatisfactory and unsettling. When it comes to her Draco, it's like there's no there there. How are we supposed to buy his motivation when he technically HAS none, he just IS a bad boy, and that's her whole story?

And while I find that somewhat irksome, that she intentionally creates 2-D characters who are just playing stock roles, what I find more alarming, personally, is her saying that neither Tom Riddle nor Voldemort ever loved ANYONE. I find that rather hard to believe, for at the very least it seemed in CoS that he MUST have loved his dead mother to have reacted so strongly to what his dad did to her and kill his own father and grandparents in retaliation. Sometimes I think she's this really deep thinker and sometimes, when I read stuff like that, I think she hasn't a clue.

[malachan.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think she's this really deep thinker and sometimes, when I read stuff like that, I think she hasn't a clue.

Both! She puts a lot of effort and thought into some issues and characters, and they are interesting. She puts very little into Draco (for example) and so he is 2D and uninteresting.

[kmai.livejournal.com]

i think he hated living in an orphanage and he probably liked his mother, although that is not the same thing as loving his mother. I dont think he MUST have loved his mother. many people dont love their mothers, people who lose them at a young age definitely miss them and are sad to see them gone, but they dont necessarily know them well enough to love them.

I dont know, i think she does have alot of background on lots of seemingly minor characters and not that much on others. (like dean thomas, theodore nott, etc.) And sometimes you just need background characters. :/

Also, a character might not be reedemable,/nice yet still not be 2-d. maybe JKR knows draco has a fetish for rubber duckies, and maybe he is a spoiled brat who collects 13th century wands. maybe he cries when he has sex, and really loves pansy. Who knows? He might still be a racist, classist, jerk/bully, and despite how much depth he has, he might still be not a nice guy.

If you are asking for depth in slytherin, well, snape might be nasty, but he is not evil. He reedeemed himself, at least in the eyes of dumbledore.

and Nigellus black was also not evil, at least he doesn't seem evil. Just because the only slytherins we have seen have been evil, doesn't mean they all are. or maybe they just all currently are? i mean, family heritage plays into what house you get, death eaters might have been friends before graduating, so likely they were from the same house, and because of the sorting system, all their children are in that house now, and since right now is the time that the Death Eater children would have been of hogwarts age...

Before that, slytherin used to win the house cup alot (six years running according to PS), and since good behavior plays a role in that, they could not have all been bullies.